Definition of venerable: 1. Commanding respect by virtue of age, dignity, character, or position. 2. Worthy of reverence, especially by religious or historical association.
For the non-native English speakers (and maybe others) in the group, it may be useful to point out that labeling something or someone "venerable" has a disrespectful tone, at least to my ear. If a piece of software is useful, or clever and continues to be useful, one could simply say it is useful, long-lived, standard, .... To say that a piece of software is venerable is to imply that its major virture is that it has lasted a long time -- perhaps too long a time--- and that perhaps it is time for it to be replaced. Would you, for example, refer to the venerable Todd Coxeter Algorithm (1936) ? I don't know if there are better algorithms, but it is old. If a paper referred to Euclid's venerable GCD algorithm, I would assume the paper was about some improved method. It is, of course, your NSF proposal, and you can say whatever you wish. RJF -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
